Battle Brothers Review (Nintendo Switch)

by Jim Smale · March 23, 2021

Battle Brothers is a turn-based tactical RPG that has you leading a mercenary company in a gritty, low-power, medieval fantasy world. You decide where to go, whom to hire or to fight, what contracts to take and how to train and equip your men in a procedurally generated open world campaign.

Pros:

Decent graphics.
2.9GB download size.
Sensitivity slider for the cursor.
Camera options-always focus on Ai movements, auto-adjust height level, always hide trees.
Overlay options-always show hit point bars, orientation icons, and tooltips, and help pop-ups.
Gameplay options-faster movement, fast Ai movement, auto end turns, auto loot, reset equipment after a battle, and auto-pause after leaving the city.
Two game modes-campaign and scenarios.
Company origin-(this determines equipment/men/resources/special rules) a new company, Southern mercenaries, Peasant Militia, and of poachers, Trading caravan, Deserters, Northern Raiders, Manhunters, Davkul Cultists, Beast slayers, Gladiators, Lone wolf and random.
Rebuilding a company is tutorial-based.
End-of-game crisis options- random, Nobles at war, Greenskin Invasion, Undead scourge, holy war, and permanent destruction (the only option that can cause campaign failure).
28 banners to choose from.
Iron man mode support.
Game difficulties-economic-beginner, veteran and expert, combat-beginner, veteran and expert, starting funds-low, medium, and high.
Map seed-generate and code which you can share with friends or do unexplored map whereby you have to find everything out yourself including revealing the map.
Free DLC.
Handy text pop up for the menus which is really helpful when creating a game/world.
Can bring up the feed showing moves and attacks.
Turn tooltips on/off with a button click.
Map-you traverses it and uncovers it as you go, you can adjust movement speed and trigger random encounters.
Hire/fire-new recruits.
Towns/camps-enter these and click on the available shops like weaponsmiths, churches, inns or markets.
Loot is rewarded after battles.
Turn order bar when in combat.
AP (action points) -dictates what you can and cannot do, land type can change ap costs.
Can camp at anytime.
Save when you want from the menu.
Multiple choice interactions can be had.
Text-based storytelling.
All characters come with their own background stories and traits.
Shortcuts-a lot of them for everything from team management to combat.
Full camera control including the ability to zoom in and out.
Drag and drop inventory system.
The game plays out with little chubby icon characters and you take turns fighting.
Day/night cycle.
All enemies have unique equipment, skills, and strategies.
Characters will have their own backstories and they may tell stories as you travel.
Nice selection of maps to play on.
Difficult.
Earn EXP and level up to increase stats and unlock perks.

Battle Brothers Review (Nintendo Switch)

Cons:

No touchscreen support.
A lot to take in.
Long loading times.
No text size options.
Even after selecting the tutorial-based entry, the game does nothing to break you in and instead just gives you the game. It’s disorientating and not in anyway helpful.
Slow-paced.
A lot of looking at menus and putting the tooltips on.
So many options and menus.
Combat is not that new, it feels safe and kind of basic most of the time.
Difficult.
A lot of downtime between events.

Battle Brothers Review (Nintendo Switch)

7/10

Graphics - 7/10
7/10

Sound - 7/10
6/10

Accessibility - 6/10
8/10

Length - 8/10
7/10

Fun Factor - 7/10

7/10

Summary

Battle Brothers is a strategy game that uses turn-based combat and a somewhat open-world exploration system. The game opens up with you able to tweak it to your liking with the difficulties split across combat, cash, etc so that’s a nice touch. One interesting option is how the map work, you can have it so parts of it are already cleared and marked up making it easier or you can have it uncovered only as you move making it a lot harder to find locations/mission markers. Praise over for a bit like the opening of the game has you pick things like what band of mercs you are or what can happen end game and that but one option has tutorial support… I call lies, the barrier of entry is so high that you need steel toe cap boots to kick the barrier down and interrogate every menu, ever click because the games not going to tell you how the combat works, how the flow is, and anything else to do with the game! You can occasionally get a bit of info from the pop-ups but there are so many of them and they are everywhere thanks to a very busy Ui and it makes for a chaotic lesson. I got through it eventually and to be honest the combat is quite bland, it plays out like a combat-driven chess match with characters replaced with chubby big head figurines and move around fighting on a round-by-round basis. It does get a bit meatier as new elements come into play and characters get leveled up and you buy new items/weapons but it’s a long arduous trek from the unknown into the constant thirst for exp and loot to just get better character development. I never felt wowed or like it had a lot of new things going on, instead, I found it fine and a good example of how to do things but also how not to do things. Overall the accessibility proved too much and many battles were had but given up on. War is war and here it’s a war we have seen before.